Career Meta Forum

What this project is

We are playing a coordinating role in the high-impact career advising ecosystem, primarily among groups and projects serving 75+ career advisees per year. The project is funded by Coefficient Giving.

The ecosystem collectively delivers thousands of advising sessions annually, but until recently there has been little structured collaboration between the organisations behind them. This project exists to change that.

It builds on the Career Advising Meta Forum, which since 2025 has brought advising organisations together at EAG London, EAGxNordics, and online, and produced a publicecosystem mapping on the EA Forum.

Why it matters

Career advising organisations face many of the same challenges, for example measuring impact and avoiding double counting, marketing and pipeline building, handling personal data legally under GDPR, and using AI tools well.

Coordination also reaches to a deeper, strategic level. It includes visibility into other organisations’ theories of change and plans to coordinate the efforts in the field and avoid duplication and gaps. We want to help organisations to have a clearer picture of who’s doing what in a rapidly moving field and aligning their efforts for maximum impact.

What we're doing

• 1-1 calls with organisations across the ecosystem (around 100 calls) to understand needs, share what others are doing, spot opportunities for collaboration, etc.

• Supporting the Effective Career Summit (New York, October 2026), an in-person retreat for the space, primarily targeting organisations that provide 1–1 advising

• Working group sessions on shared challenges such as monitoring and evaluation, marketing, and 1:1 advising program design. Exact topics to be decided later based on mapping of needs.

• Coordination meetups at EAG conferences

• Ecosystem surveys and an updated public ecosystem map

• Facilitated shared projects where there is genuine demand; current candidates include, e.g., shared GDPR solutions, shared impact measurement practices, and replicable job board tooling

• Public writeups of results on the EA Forum

• Etc. The project is currently in its early stages and we expect the picture to sharpen after an initial round of 1–1s, the first ecosystem survey, and the retreat.

Who it's for

Primarily organisations offering 1:1 career advising, from dedicated advisory organisations to national and city groups with significant advising programs. This is not a strict boundary: if your organisation works on impactful careers and wants more connection with the rest of the space, we want to hear from you.

How to engage

• Take a call: a 30 to 45 minute conversation with Vesa about what your organisation does, your bottlenecks, and where coordination could help you

• Answer the ecosystem survey (August 2026) so the field map reflects your work

• Join working sessions on topics relevant to you

Contact: vesa.hautala@careercoordination.org

Who we are

Vesa Hautala leads the day-to-day coordination work. He previously served as career advising manager for EA Finland, and co-developed and helped run the joint Nordic EA career course. He co-organised the Career Meta Forum at EAG London 2025 and co-authored the EA Career Advising Ecosystem Mapping. Vesa has been doing 1:1 career advising at Christians for Impact since 2024.

JD Bauman oversees the project. He is the Executive Director of Christians for Impact and brings 7+ years of community building experience and relationships with executives and senior professionals across the EA talent space. He co-founded the Career Advising Meta Forum.